1. Field of the Invention
The invention relates to a load-carrying component in the interior of a vehicle that makes it possible to support a vehicle cross-member or module carrier on the floor region of the vehicle body. In some cases such load-carrying components themselves, apart from supporting the rails carrying various apparatuses, function to support or mount different accessory parts in vehicles, particularly to mount casings of air conditioning units.
2. Related Technology
The cockpits of modern vehicles are equipped with a plurality of different apparatuses required to enable the vehicle to be operated in a roadworthy condition and according to the approval, as well as to meet the continuously growing demands of comfort and technical development. Requirements of weight and cost reduction and constraints going back to competition of providing higher levels of maintenance and assembly friendliness, accompany the increasing complexity so that all components have to be permanently designed. Permanent perfection of the vehicle body, and accessories connected to it, is extremely important within this development.
Especially different horizontal structural members, which may be equipped with a plurality of prepared possibilities to receive apparatuses or components to be mounted, have become established in vehicle engineering, whereby the structural members are frequently supported on a tunnel arranged along the vehicle longitudinal axis in the floor region of the vehicle body. Not only the assembly possibilities, but also strength and safety aspects, determine the design of those structural members.
Main casings of air conditioning units, together with the components contained in them (such as evaporator, temperature control or door system, heating heat exchanger and, if present, additional heater and air filter) are usually positioned approximately in the vehicle center above the vehicle tunnel and below the instrument panel. As a rule they are mounted to a vehicle cross-member designed as a structural connection of both A-pillars of the vehicle body. In most cases, the vehicle cross-member is supported by tunnel supports in the region of the vehicle center because, with a view to avoiding unnecessary material expenditure, it is dimensioned so that it is unable to bear the loads of those big assembly units without additional support. In the state-of-the-art, for strength and design reasons, the tunnel supports are positioned immediately adjacent to the main casing of the air conditioning unit integrated in the vehicle and, additionally, may be designed to hold the air conditioning unit. In many cases the air conditioning unit is one of the most voluminous assembly units in the front region of the cockpit. In the course of growing demands on the technical performance of air conditioning units in a continually reduced mounting space, the concept of tunnel supports arranged on the sides cannot be kept any longer.
It has been found that the integration of the air conditioning unit between two vertical tunnel supports involves partly considerable disadvantages. The tunnel supports fixed in the vehicle divide the mounting space available in the front region of the cockpit into three zones, whereby this division cannot be later changed. Because the legroom in the front region of the vehicle is desired to be as large as possible, the tunnel supports are mostly arranged such that they are positioned very close to the main casing of the air conditioning unit. In this way, they do not unnecessarily project into the footspace of the driver or passenger excessively limiting their legroom. The configuration close to the main casing, however, involves the disadvantage of restricted freedom for assembly. In addition, the mounting space available to insert the air conditioning unit is unalterably limited on both sides by the tunnel supports. Adaption to subsequent casing shape changes, changed division of the space or later installation of casings with different geometry, is expensive, if possible at all.
In the state-of-the-art, different approaches are known to utilize the strength resources of the installed air conditioning units when configuring the concerned vehicle body portions.
It is known, for example, to functionally integrate the outside of the casing of the air conditioning unit into the load-bearing structures at the front border of the passenger compartment (U.S. Pat. No. 6,231,116 B1). Such a solution, however, requires high adaptation efforts if installation in different body types is planned.
Further, it is known to support the weight of the air conditioning unit at several mounting points in order not to excessively load the vehicle cross-member (U.S. Pat. No. 6,351,962 B1). It may be a problem to adapt this solution to different geometries.